Tuesday, May 4, 2004

my mother cries over the kitchen sink

she takes off her glasses
and sets them on the counter,

tears come to her eyes
while she hovers over the sink,

a hand holding a knife
that's sharp as sarcasm,

sob, slice!, sob, slice
sob, hack! sob...

i am back from school
with my brothers and my sister

who are already in the basement
watching Popeye on the big Sylvania,

and i watch my mother as she
hacks, sobs, tears, wheezes over
the sink, the window is open,

i can see our neighbors through the
branches of the crabapple tree
as the bunch of them gather around
a grill, someone laughs, i see a football
go through the air, someone laughs again,

hack!SOB

i ask what the matter was, what
in the world that goes around
like the big and little hands on the clock
could be wrong,

she looks up, she smiles as only
mothers are able when their eyes
are red and every in their face aches
with pain and fatigue,

liver and onions
she says,
your father's favorite,
for better or for worse...

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